Heart Fades to Black - Introduction
This is an alternative development of Haven from the Storm and is a very dark and tragic story. It is rated R for sexual content, foul language, and suicide. This is your fair warning - only read this if you can handle such tales.
Late in 2003, with Haven From the Storm well launched, I started playing with the idea of what would happen if Jack in fact did become involved with Popuri. For several months, on and off, I played with several versions of what ultimately became chapter 1 of Heart Fades to Black. By February 2004, I had sufficiently outlined the story so that I was convinced I could make it go. I beat chapter 1 into final state, published it on ff.net, and throughout 2004, kept a small but select audience amused at the spectacle of the prissy writer of Haven From the Storm stringing a series of progressively raunchier sex romps together into a dark tragedy.
The story picks up towards the end of chapter 12 of Haven From the Storm. To recapitulate, against his better judgment Jack had been induced to take Popuri to the Goddess Festival. Although Jack has an intense physical attraction towards Popuri, he finds her otherwise annoying and unsuitable as a partner. Beforehand, he had been befriending Mary, who had fallen in love with him and became heartbroken once Jack and Popuri seemed to become a couple. Karen, best friend to both Jack and Mary, has been trying to repair the damage, with little success. At the festival, in an ill-advised attempt to relieve stress and depression, Jack, Karen, and Mary became drunk. Mary, unaccustomed to liquor, assaulted Popuri, who became hysterical as a result. The festival nearly degenerated into a general brawl, which was averted by the Mayor (advised by Karen) ending the festival early.
I owe a special debt here to Farmer Jen, who demonstrated in her brilliant collection of short stories Betrayal that Harvest Moon fan fictions can be plausible tragedies. I owe another great debt to Red Sonic, who not only encouraged me in this story even when it perhaps exceeded his ideas of propriety, but also gave me the idea of a Jack explicitly divided against himself which he used in his The Valentine Conspiracy to great effect. Also I must thank Amaretto and Coke for her sharp and cynical reviews which never failed to amuse and encourage me, and sometime sent me into such extremes of laughter as to induce doubts as to my sanity in my wife. Of course, none of them are responsible in any way for the contents of this story.
Disclaimer: Harvest Moon - Back to Nature, its characters, plot and setting are the intellectual property of Natsume. Excerpts from Four Quartets - Burnt Norton in chapter 5 were the property of T. S. Eliot. The song Je Ne Regrette Rien in chapter 6 was the property of Édith Piaf. The song Teenage Lobotomy in chapter 9 is the property of the Ramones. I am grateful to all of them for their creativity and for the fact that they haven't sicced hordes of feral, rabid lawyers on me.
